How to Keep Your Diet on Track During the Holidays

5 Simple Steps to Stave Off Holiday Weight Gain

Here’s a common scenario faced by many people trying to lose weight. They begin to get their eating habits under control, build up a routine of going to the gym and exercising regularly, and even start to see some progress on the scale or in the mirror. It’s usually nothing too crazy — a few pounds shed, or a belt size dropped, but it’s progress nonetheless. Then they check their calendars and see an imminent obstacle: an upcoming holiday.

For most people, the holidays are a time for celebrating, and that often means eating and drinking to excess, not to mention staying up late, sleeping in, and traveling. That’s why, for those aspiring to lose weight, the holidays can be a psychological minefield: they take you out of your new, healthy routine and throw you into circumstances largely outside of your control.

If you’ve spent months using an app like Noom to carefully choose your food options, consciously selecting the healthiest ingredients and diligently avoiding the most calorie-dense options, the idea of suddenly having other people prepare your food can be a nightmare. Do you really want to be staring at your grandmother’s famous mashed potatoes wondering just how much butter she put in them?

And then there’s your gym routine to consider. It wasn’t easy for you to build the habit of regularly going to the gym, lifting weights, and doing cardio, but you’ve managed to make that a habit — a part of your week as natural as working, sleeping and eating. What will happen to that habit when you’re on holiday? Will you lose all of your progress and have to start over again?

Fortunately, there are some tips and tricks you can use to stay on track this holiday season – without turning down your grandmother’s mashed potatoes.

1. Accept the Holidays as a Diet Break

Unless you’re a competitive bodybuilder or professional athlete, you should treat the holidays like everyone else does: as a break, a chance to unwind, and a source of enjoyment. That doesn’t mean letting yourself have three helpings of dessert each night, but it does mean acknowledging that you’re trying to build a healthy habit for life, and that means giving yourself a break from the hard work and meticulous calorie-counting to focus on more important things, like sharing your time off with your loved ones.

Stress is a major trigger of binge eating, according to the Harvard Medical School. If you drive yourself crazy testing your willpower (say, by refusing a second glass of beer or that dessert you want to try), you might, paradoxically, only end up sabotaging yourself down the line, when you inevitably give in to the cravings. Worse, still: if you’re behaving in a stressed out way, your family and friends will pick up on that, and that could have negative repercussions for your entire holiday.

So relax, take a deep breath, and never lose sight of the more important things. As far as your diet is concerned, though, you can still implement some of your newfound nutritional knowledge.

2. Control Your Portions

Now that you’ve had some experience with dieting, and a basic grasp of nutritional information, you can make some informed decisions about what you eat. You know, for example, that you can load your plate up with vegetables without putting much of a dent in your day’s calorie intake, but that doing the same with the mashed potatoes and gravy can torpedo your progress.

Solution? Portion control. Help yourself to a smaller serving of the potatoes and a larger serving of the vegetables and whatever protein source is on offer. Focus on finishing all of your vegetables before you polish off the mashed potatoes, or whatever other calorie-dense carb source is on offer. And when it comes time for dessert, graciously accept whatever is on offer, but insist on a small portion.

Then there are the drinks to consider. You should know by now that liquid calories, which are easy to consume and add up quickly, can undermine even the most diligent dieter’s plans, so you’re going to want to exercise some caution here. Opt for water whenever possible, but don’t deny yourself the pleasure of a glass of wine or beer here or there. If sodas are on offer, however, opt for the diet version or skip them entirely. And if there’s a wide selection of drinks available, you can be clever and use Noom’s built-in barcode scanner to check out the nutritional information and make an informed decision.

3. Get Your Exercise In Whenever You Can

If you happen to be hosting the holiday festivities this year, you might have access to your regular gym and the time to sneak away for a quick weight lifting or cardio session. If you’re staying in a hotel, you’ll almost certainly have access to gym facilities of some kind, often with greater convenience than your home gym. But what if you don’t have access to a gym?

Fortunately for you, exercise doesn’t have to involve a barbell or a treadmill. A long walk with family, a hike through the woods, a stroll along the beach or a swim in the ocean — all of these count as exercise and can help offset your unusually high calorie consumption.

Take the initiative and propose one of the above group ventures to your holiday gathering; not only will you burn calories, you’ll get to spend some quality time catching up with friends and family. If your gathering has some young kids, you’re in luck: children have boundless energy, and if you spend half an hour playing with them — throwing around a Frisbee or a baseball, say, or playing tag — you’ll be gassed in no time.

4. Tips for Managing an Unhealthy Family Situation

For many people striving to lose weight, the source of their bad eating and exercise habits can be traced to their family environment. Maybe your parents weren’t very active, discouraging you from engaging in physical activity when you were younger. Or, maybe they weren’t very health-conscious and stocked the pantry with high-sugar snacks, or seldom offered you fruit and vegetables. For aspiring dieters, returning to this family environment can be very triggering.

The solution to this situation is to be as proactive as possible. If your family isn’t inclined to prepare healthy food, offer to help make dinner, or at least prepare a salad. You’ll simultaneously be lending your family some assistance and easing the strain on your diet. If they insist on cooking, insist on serving yourself, thereby controlling your own portions. And if they’re not exactly the type of family to enjoy a long after-dinner hike or a game of touch football in the yard, find your own ways to exercise: offer to walk the family dog, or do the dishes and take out the trash — anything to get your butt off the couch.

5. Outsource Your Motivation

Unfortunately, willpower is a finite commodity, and when you’re surrounded by delicious, high-calorie food for days on end, the temptation to let loose can seem overwhelming. At times like that, it helps to have a friend or loved one to keep you accountable, and to remind you of all the reasons you started on your weight loss journey to begin with. For most people, that will be their spouse, but it could be a sibling, a parent or a friend as well.

If you don’t have the luxury of a supportive friend or spouse, or if you’re more of an introvert and want to make this journey on your own, you can still find outside help. One of the most useful aspects of the Noom weight loss app is its coaching feature. Noom matches every user with a team of coaches, including a goal specialist, who will check in on you and offer helpful suggestions based on your specific needs, habits, and experiences. Having a sympathetic, knowledgeable coach at your fingertips can be the difference between diet success and diet failure.

The holidays should be a time of relaxation and enjoyment, and with the above tips —and a little help from Noom, you should be able to continue making progress on your fitness journey while still enjoying your much-deserved time off.